LOOKIE!

My good friend James Jennings runs an excellent blog on beer and when he asked me to do a review for him I jumped at the chance. Well, not actually jump because then I would have had to get off the couch, but I did at least raise my eyebrows in enthusiasm. Check out my review here.

James is also the Cleveland Craft Beer Examiner and I highly recommend you check out his page.

Hi. Can I ask you a few questions?

Sometime during the long dreary days that marked my post graduate unemployment slump I wandered on over to craigslist. Not because I needed some no strings attached companionship (they have it) or because I needed beard advice (oh they have that too) but because I was going to look for a job. I had exhausted most other resources that I knew of with no positive results, so craigslist looked as good of a place as any to start a job hunt. At the very least I found an awesome boat for sale.

I want to work in the media or some sort of writing/editing/film/tv field, so I began my search there. A few observations:

1. If you live in the Pittsburgh area, give up now. Unless you are a girl ages 18-26 and you want to be a “model” for someone who has a “studio” in their parent’s basement, you’re likely going to have to move to a larger area…

2. Like Washington D.C. The D.C. craiglist site was full of both job and internship openings in the fields I mentioned. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I went to a college no one has ever heard of and I have next to zero practical work experience, my applications were turned down. However, I do encourage anyone to check out the D.C. craigslist. It’s pleasantly surprising.

So what did I find? Well, after scrolling through numerous calls for “models” and for people claiming to have written the next Hollywood blockbuster, I found an ad calling for amateur writers and photographers. I’m a decent writer and less than amateur photographer, but I figured if I averaged the two I could be considered competent. I responded to the ad and was soon contacted by a representative from a new website called Patch. Owned by AOL, Patch is a hyper-local community news blog. It has already launched in 5 states and is now looking to do the same in Pennsylvania. Why the need for amateur writers and photographers? Well, my job is to go around to local businesses, take pictures, and collect information about their general services. I then enter the info, write a little bit about the business, then post it to the website.

Pros? I get paid a decent amount to write and take pictures.

Cons? Old people still do not really understand what the internet is.

I encourage you to check out the website, and if you are looking for a part time job to make some extra money, I know that Patch is going to be expanding and looking to hire new people to do jobs similar to mine. Give it a shot.

Splice (2009)

Rotten Tomatoes is an online movie review aggregate. They search the internet for movie reviews from all different sources then compile them to form a general percent grade of how many reviews are positive. I’ve seen ratings as low as 07% and as high as 98%. Because of the way that the site works, the more reviews that RT compiles, the more accurately the score reflects the real quality of the movie. I’m going through all this because RT is typically a pretty reliable source to go to for info on how good a movie is.

Not this time.

(If you really want to see this movie, stop reading now. Spoilers ahead.)

Before I begin, take a peek at the trailer.

Now, back to the beginning. I saw the Splice trailer a few months back and was intrigued. I knew it wouldn’t be a movie of earth shatteringly good proportions, but I didn’t expect the crap fest that I had to sit through. Let’s talk about the trailer first. It makes the movie look like part Alien, Doom, and I guess even a little Jurassic Park (with the whole ‘science is OUT OF CONTROL!’ theme). But what the movie actually delivers…totally different.

Splice is like a weird animal/alien/love story/pseudo-psychological thriller…I could go on. This movie has absolutely zero idea of what it wants to be. One second it is trying to create an authentically scary moment, then only a few short minutes later Adrien Brody is having sex with the creature.

WTF?!

You heard me correctly. Oscar winning actor Adrien Brody bangs the creature/child that is also going to kill him, but before it does it morphs from female to male and then rapes his girlfriend, getting her pregnant, then she decides to keep the baby saying, and I quote “What’s the worst that can happen?”. Really? The worst? Um…death?

I am making nothing up. Splice is simply retarded. I don’t even know how movies like this get made. I’ve been to a lot of movies and I can’t remember the entire audience laughing at anything but a comedy. Splice changed that. People were literally laughing out during many different parts. Instead of buying a ticket to see this movie you should take your $9 and burn it. It would be a more enjoyable experience.

Oh, why did I bring up RT? Because the site has given Splice a grade of…ready…74%! This may not seem very high, but let me put it this way, 3/4 of the people who reviewed this, professional film critics, LIKED IT! I don’t even know how this is possible. It’s the same rating that Iron Man 2 has, and that movie was literally one billion times better than this, and Iron Man 2 wasn’t even that great.

I’m so confused.

The Strangers (2008)

I’m a scary movie fanatic. I know what you’re thinking now, and no, I don’t dress in black, listen to slipknot, and I’m not an obese comic book nerd. I’ve just always found it very interesting to see what actually scares people. Scariest movie I’ve ever seen? The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (review to follow).

Two days ago I popped in The Strangers. I remember the trailer and how scary it was, so I was very excited to see the film. It looked violently frightening and disturbing. But, like comedies seem to do, all the best parts were in the trailer.

The Strangers starts out on a high (low?) note. High in the sense that it’s quite captivating and the first few minutes are, in my opinion, really well done. Low in that the characters immediately start out depressed and angry. This isn’t a horror movie where everyone is having a great time and then plummet into a nightmare.

But those first few minutes are really the only good part. The film tries to hard to keep up the tension for too long and eventually the plot falls in on itself under the weight of too many contrived circumstances. You don’t even see the mysterious killers until about 45 minutes in to the film.

I didn’t expect The Strangers to be great. I knew it was just a scary popcorn movie, but I really expected more. At the end it was just so ridiculous it was funny.

No so strange

Film Fest

Tonight is the annual Grove City College Short Film Fest. I’ve never went in the past, but this year I’ll be entering a submission, so I have to go. Written by Jonathan Lim, Patient Zero is our real first attempt at video production. Because the college has such pitiful offering when it comes to media equipment we were only permitted to use the camera and lighting kit for one day.

One day.

Everything that you will see in the film was filmed in about a 12 hour period. Editing was a whole new monster. Once again, GCC fell through and we were not able to use the editing software on the school’s computers. Thankfully I had just gotten a MacBook Pro with Final Cut Express installed, so over the course of 3-4 days, about 8 hours a day, I taught myself how to use FCE and edited our short film. Take a look below.

Welcome Back to the Interwebz

I’ve blogged off an on for the past 2 years or so, but never with any sort of regularity. Now I’m making my return to the blogosphere. My friend, James Jennings really inspired me to start writing on the internet after he had some success with his beer blog (here). Take a moment and look around his site. Pretty good stuff.